The Cavafy Enigma

The paradox of Cavafy’s global impact remains enigmatic in so many ways. How is it that a once marginalized Greek poet writing highly erudite and homoerotic verse at a “slight angle to the universe,” as E.M. Forster famously put it, came to straddle his own poetic universe? This question calls to mind Cavafy’s early ekphrastic poem on Gustave Moreau’s painting, “Oedipus and the Sphinx,” where the correct answer to a riddle spells the destruction of a fabulous mythological creature. Indeed, Cavafy and his art are more akin to the inscrutable Sphinx than they are to the classical hero Oedipus. His poetry endures as a hybrid creation, an aesthetic and linguistic amalgam, a phantasmagoric ménage. Solving the puzzle of Cavafy’s poetic fame risks bringing the entire artifice of his work and persona crashing down.

Yet solve it we must. His current readers value his poetry differently than did his contemporaries in Greece and Egypt, who argued endlessly (and quite often menacingly) about its relative merits and flaws. Cavafy’s inventive use of the Greek language initially provoked derision. Like Jacob, he wrestled with it as an intimidating and sublime foe; neither emerged a clear victor, yet neither remained wholly unscathed. The current phenomenon of his translation worldwide has given Cavafy’s oeuvre new wings. And it has soared.

What appeals most to his contemporary readers? Elements that were once problematic but have now become simply “Cavafian.” First there is his ironic and unsentimental reading of Hellenism. He showed the world a different way of approaching antiquity, how to fall in love with it while avoiding chauvinism and pedantic excess. Secondly, he filtered the finest aspects of nineteenth-century poetry—aestheticism, Parnassianism, and decadence—into his work, effectively distilling drops of these literary traditions into an absinthe all his own. With his penchant for history, he was without question one of the most savvy and innovative interpreters of the century into which he was born; remarkably, he found a way to make it all original and modern. And lastly, and perhaps most significantly, he redefined the homoerotic subject vividly, seductively and honestly, paving the way for a burgeoning gay readership and anticipating queer interpretations of his art. Collectively, these factors have succeeded in making his poems feel ever new and ever vibrant; one never grows tired of reading and rereading them.

During his lifetime Cavafy enjoyed toying with his readers, deliberately creating an aura of mystery and anticipation around his poetic corpus. This calculated tactic of withholding and revealing proved most effective, as his once small but fanatical cult of devotees has now become a global community. We are still curious to know more about the Sphinx and his artistic legacy. The launching of the digitized Cavafy archive invites a more illuminating and intense encounter with the creative mind and the astounding personality behind the poetry. And like Oedipus, we should expect to be challenged and accosted yet again “with more difficult and more baffling enigmas”* about this complex and most fascinating poet.

*excerpt from the poem "Oedipus"